Franchitti Rolls To Pole In Toronto

Dario Franchitti will start Sunday’s IZOD IndyCar Series even in Toronto from the pole.

The Target Chip Ganassi driver, who won this year’s Indianapolis 500, edged Will Power of Team Penske to get the pole. The pole was the 29th of Franchitti’s career and third in a row.

“That was a really hard-earned pole,” Franchitti said. “Track position will be very important tomorrow and it is great be up front in Toronto again, the same place I won my first pole 15 years ago in 1997.”

Power will start on the front row for the fourth time this season.

“No I didn’t have anything [in the end for Dario Franchitti, pole sitter], but very happy to be second,” Power said. “We’d struggled to get through every round and made it in each time. I just had one good lap, I could see I was slow on the out on my first set, so I had to put everything together and that was as good as we could possibly do. We’re happy to start on the front row, we all know what this race is about, a lot of crashing and bashing so we’ll stay out of that and be in good shape.”

Justin Wilson and Sebastien Bourdais will share the second row a day after being together in a pit road incident created by Wilson missing his pit box. Five crew members were hit, sending two to the hospital. All were released Friday afternoon.

“For sure,” Bourdais said, “the added drama yesterday we didn’t need, like the boys were saying after qualifying, ‘Not bad for a bunch of cripples.’ But yeah, that’s what they said. They’re all bruised up and walking on a leg and a half. So it’s really good.”

Scott Dixon and Alex Tagliani rounded out the Firestone Fast Six by qualifying fifth and sixth.

(This story will be updated shortly)

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Qualifying Saturday for the Honda Indy Toronto IZOD IndyCar Series event on the 1.755 mile(s) Streets of Toronto, with starting position, car number in parentheses, driver, chassis-engine, time and speed in parentheses: